BOOKS

All of Kevin’s books are available at Amazon, as well as other booksellers.

PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE – 2018

Ezra Caine is gay. He’s sort of out at school but not at home, where he fears the wrath of his father’s bigotry. When Ezra’s flamboyantly out friend Alex Mills takes one too many beatings from homophobic bully Will Severe, Ezra finally snaps. Fed up with the situation at school, he decides to do something about it. With the help of his BFF, Nettie, and some unlikely allies, Ezra rallies to create their small-town school’s first gay-straight alliance. The Rainbow Alliance Club is formed. But the changes don’t come without hiccups, one of which being a messy scandal involving Alex and a gay hook-up app. As Ezra and his friends attempt to sway their school into an alliance of tolerance and acceptance, Ezra experiences a few surprises of his own on the home-front. He also learns the hard way that friendships out of convenience aren’t always a good idea, just as some enemies might not be as bad as he originally imagined them to be.

LIGHT NEAR THE END OF THE WORLD – A CAMINO DE SANTIAGO SHORT STORY – 2018

Corinne began her Camino de Santiago pilgrimage way back in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, weeks ago. Exhausted, spent, and on the verge of giving up, she meets a pilgrim who gives her the inspiration she needs to carry on. But is it enough to get her there, to the famous cathedral at the end of the journey in Santiago de Compostela? Follow Corinne’s path along the Way of St. James as she struggles to carry on and to find herself along the way.

SUMMER ON FIRE – 2011

Zach Carson is a loyal friend. But is loyalty enough to keep best friends together when one of them sets fire to the rural barn they use as the local hangout? Zach, Jeff Barsell and Arnie Wilson struggle to pick up the pieces when news spreads that a body was discovered in the burnt out shell of the neighbouring home. When the word murder is used by the local police, the stakes grow even higher. When the police start searching for their most likely suspect-none other than Jeff’s older brother, and nemesis, Marty Barsell-the boys decide to join forces and come up with a way to prove his innocence. But just how innocent is Marty Barsell? When Marty admits to being at the scene of the crime, the three friends enlist the help of Zach’s annoying sister, Sherry, as well as the sympathetic town eccentric, Ms. Halverton. But can they keep it together long enough to save Marty, and themselves, from imminent catastrophe? Summer on Fire is the story of friendships, and the lines we are asked to cross in order to keep them.

SEBASTIAN’S POET – 2012

Sebastian Nelson is a boy in search of a family. Abandoned by his mother, Sebastian is left with a broken father who doesn’t even seem present when he does show up. Forced to be the main caregiver of his younger brother, Renee, and lost in a sea of indifference, Sebastian only wants to experience the love a real, stable family could afford him. One morning he discovers the famous folksinger, Teal Landen, asleep on the sofa. Teal’s nurturing nature brings an immediate sense of security into Sebastian’s tumultuous life. But a dark secret looms between Teal and Sebastian’s father of a hidden past. Sebastian is driven to discover their secret, but also he’s aware of how tenuous their hold on Teal really is. He doesn’t want to lose the feeling of home Teal’s presence has brought him. If Sebastian pushes too hard, he could lose Teal forever. He could be destined to raise his younger brother alone, while witnessing the total decline of his emotionally devastated father. If Sebastian is abandoned by the only healthy influence in his otherwise shaky existence, he will also be forever in the dark about the secret that will reveal so much about his fractured family.

THE REASONS – 2013

With a mostly absent father, a deceased older sister, a younger sister on the verge of invisibility, and a certifiably insane mother, Tobias Reason is forced to grow up quickly. Though he tries to be a surrogate parent to his sister, their broken mother, Maggie, takes up a lot of his time. Annabel falls to the wayside and becomes a ghost in their chaotic existence. When Maggie flippantly hands her mother’s house over to Tobias, he sees an opportunity to learn how and why his family became so shattered. Be careful what you wish for. When his world begins to collapse from the weight of un-buried secrets, he focuses on a stranger from his parents’ past. Only by eliminating the past, he believes, can he make his family whole again.

BURN BABY BURN BABY – 2014 (Re-Released 2019)

Seventeen-year-old Francis Fripp’s confidence is practically non-existent since his abusive father drenched him in accelerant and threw a match at him eight years ago. Now badly scarred, Francis relies on his best friend Trig to protect him from the constant bullying doled out at the hands of his nemesis, Brandon Hayley—the unrelenting boy who gave him the dreaded nickname of Burn Baby. The new girl at school, Rachel Higgins, is the first to see past Francis’s pariah-inducing scars. If Brandon’s bullying doesn’t destroy him, Francis might experience life as a normal teenager for the first time in his life. He just has to avoid Brandon and convince himself he’s worthy of Rachel’s attentions. Sounds easy enough, but Francis himself has a hard time seeing past his scars. And Brandon is getting violently frustrated, as his attempts to bully Francis are constantly thwarted. Francis is in turmoil as he simultaneously rushes toward his first kiss and a possible violent end.

HALF DEAD & FULLY BROKEN – 2015 (Re-Released 2019)

Carter Colby is the most unpopular teen at Jefferson High. This would be easier to deal with if his identical twin brother, Marcus, weren’t the hottest, most popular boy in school. When Marcus is killed in a motorcycle accident, Carter discovers the one thing more painful than trying to compete with Mr. Wonderful: wearing his dead brother’s face. He felt invisible before the accident, but with Marcus dead, everybody turns away from him in mourning. How can he blame them? He can’t bear to look in the mirror. When Carter begins to see Marcus’ ghost, Mr. Wonderful’s quest to save the world and spread happiness may not be over after all, even in death. Marcus knows that Justin Dewar, the boy who drove the truck that crashed into his motorbike, is struggling with the guilt of taking a life. Melanie, Marcus’ mourning best friend, was also hit hard by the tragedy. Marcus wants to make things right before it’s too late. With Marcus’ help, Carter experiences love and friendship for the first time in his life. But is Mr. Wonderful’s helping hand enough for Carter, Melanie, and Justin – three kids fully broken by the tragedy – to save one another?

I WILL TELL THE NIGHT – Coming in early 2019!

Finn Barker gets a surprise phone call from a family he left behind thirty years ago. He originally fled to save himself from abuse and homophobic bigotry. His siblings call him back for his dying mother. Finn has to make a split-second decision to either return to the family that rejected him, or ignore the alarm and stay inside the comfort of the life he created for himself a thousand miles away from his childhood home.

When Finn decides to make the trip from Toronto, rather than live with the regret of not doing so, he prepares for a journey that will take him back into the treacherous territory of all his buried childhood memories. Before getting his affairs in order and packing his car, he informs Steven—the man he’s been seriously dating for a number of months—of his plans. Steven not only insists on joining Finn on his odyssey back home, but also insists on being the driver for the journey. With Steven behind the wheel, they set out across Canada on a journey that has Finn recalling so many of the traumatic memories that caused him to flee in the first place.

Finn decides to finally let the barrier he’s been struggling to keep between Steven and himself crumble by degrees. After keeping everyone in his life at bay for as long as he can remember, he knows Steven is the one he can finally let in. Stephen is content to drive and bear witness to Finn’s sordid past. Finn recounts his love for his grandmother, MyImogene, his hatred for his misogynistic homophobic father, and the loss of his twin brother Jesse who he had managed to keep out of his thoughts for the duration of his family estrangement. All the things he avoided for decades flood back to him while the car plows through the night toward the eventuality of his mother’s death.

Once in New Brunswick, Finn is able to say goodbye to the mother he no longer knows. As she lays dying, Finn struggles to find a way to be in the same room with a father who has somehow managed to stay locked inside the ignorant mindset he had lived in some thirty years before. As Finn’s mother passes, he decides to try harder to mend the rift between himself and his father. In the days following her death, the two men work to repair their broken relationship. Together, along with Finn’s siblings Fran and Art, the two go about the preparations of laying to rest the woman who connects them all together.

In the days that lead up to the funeral, Finn’s relationship with Steven becomes more certain. He realizes he need only open up to the man and let him in to have him in his life forever. At the same time, what Finn always imagined to be impossible begins to happen. Although they argue and snap at each other along the way, Finn’s efforts to save the dead relationship with his father begin to bear fruit. As the two men are drawn closer together, however, Finn is slowly allowed access into a world he never knew existed.

Though Finn never understood the reasons behind the mutual hatred between his parents and his grandmother MyImogene, his father slowly reveals to him the dark secret underbelly of their family. As the hidden secrets are revealed to him, it takes everything in Finn’s power not to sink beneath the surface and disappear for another thirty years.